The next moment, Van Wyk had broken free from the mêlée and, turning rapidly about, came charging forward to where Holmes and I were standing in the lee of the wheel-house.
I doubt if he saw us in the shadows. His goal seemed to be the gang-plank which lay over to our left. Two constables, recognisable by their helmets and their black waterproof capes, were guarding it but their attention was on the main struggle which was taking place further along the deck. Within seconds, all could be lost. Van Wyk would reach the gang-plank and, taking the constables by surprise, might force his way down on to the wharf from where he would easily make his escape among the surrounding labyrinth of alleyways and side-streets.
I must confess that I, who only a short time before had been so eager for action and silently upbraiding Holmes for his lack of it, found it impossible to move. As the powerful figure of the captain came hurtling towards us, his face contorted by rage, I was suddenly overcome by nausea, caused no doubt by the effects of the drug still present in my system.
It was Holmes who responded. As I stood helplessly by, he took a step forward, the muscles of his left arm bunched at the shoulder, his whole body as tense as a coiled spring. Then his fist went flashing past me, the knuckles gleaming white in the lamp-light, and there came a heavy thud as the blow struck the side of Van Wyk’s jaw. Like a tree felled by a single stroke of an axe, he went crashing down on to the deck.
Holmes turned to me, his lean features transfigured by an expression of fierce jubilation.
‘I think, Watson,’ said he, ‘that our account with Captain Van Wyk is finally settled.’
Before I had time to reply, a bulky figure, dressed in unofficial tweeds, detached itself from the group of struggling men in the centre of the deck and came striding in our direction: Inspector Patterson of Scotland Yard, I perceived as he drew nearer. I had already made his acquaintance through my association with Holmes and had found him an excellent officer, efficient, co-operative and possessing a wide knowledge of London’s criminal fraternity.
‘Well, Mr Holmes,’ cried he, coming to a halt beside Van Wyk’s recumbent body and regarding it with a look of satisfaction, ‘I have not seen a better straight left than yours outside the professional ring.3 And with the captain down and out for the count, thanks to you, we now have all the crew safely rounded up.’
He gestured to where the knot of men was already breaking up and was making its way in a more orderly fashion towards the gang-plank, each member of the crew escorted by a police officer, some in uniform, some in plain clothes. Among them, I recognised the mate, Bakker, his hands secured behind his back and his dark, bearded features made even more ill-favoured by a large swelling above his left eye.
On Inspector Patterson’s orders, the two constables guarding the gang-plank came forward and, heaving Van Wyk upright, snapped a pair of handcuffs over his wrists. He had recovered a little from the blow Holmes had dealt him, although he was still unsteady on his feet. As he was dragged away, he directed towards us a scowl of such intense hatred that my blood ran cold at the thought that only a short time ago, Holmes and I had lain drugged and bound at the mercy of this unspeakable villain.
With the departure of the crew of the Friesland, all of whom with the exception of Captain Van Wyk and the mate were later released as having played no part in our abduction and imprisonment, the night’s activities were almost completed. Inspector Patterson left a guard on board the vessel and the four passengers who were found cowering in their cabins, too terrified by the sounds of the violent struggle taking place on deck to emerge, were reassured and escorted ashore.
Holmes and I then left in the company of Inspector Patterson to drive to Scotland Yard where, after we had formally identified Van Wyk and Bakker, they were later charged and taken away into custody.
III
‘And now, my good Inspector, you will no doubt wish to hear a more detailed and personal account of last night’s extraordinary events than the official statement I have already made,’ Holmes said.
It was the following evening when, on my old friend’s insistence, Patterson had called at our Baker Street lodgings.
‘First, the identity of the villain behind last night’s attempted abduction.’
‘We already know that!’ Patterson interjected. ‘It was Van Wyk, the master of the SS Friesland, with the assistance of Bakker, the mate.’
‘Oh, no, Inspector. He was merely the agent of someone much more powerful and dangerous whose name is familiar to both of you. Can you not guess? Then I shall have to tell you. It is Professor Moriarty.’
‘Moriarty!’ Patterson and I exclaimed in unison.
‘But Holmes,’ I protested, as the inspector fell silent in utter astonishment, ‘Professor Moriarty met his death at the Reichenbach Falls at your hands. You are surely not suggesting that by some miracle he survived.’
‘No, my dear fellow. There is not the smallest likelihood of that. No one, not even he, could have emerged alive from that dreadful abyss. But it is perfectly possible for a man with Moriarty’s genius for evil to continue exerting his influence from beyond the grave. He warned me once, here in this very room, that if I brought about his destruction, he would see to it that I, in turn, would be destroyed.4 On that same occasion, he also informed me that he was the head of a syndicate, the full extent of which even I could not appreciate. In that, he was mistaken. From my enquiries, I had already deduced that Moriarty controlled an international criminal fraternity, responsible for at least forty major crimes, including murder, robbery and forgery.
‘I believe I once described him to you, Watson, as a malignant spider. It was an apt simile. His organisation was composed of many threads and extended over a vast area. When, with Inspector Patterson’s help,5 we set about smashing that web by rounding up members of Moriarty’s gang, a few managed to elude us, including Van Wyk and his associate Bakker, whose task it was, should Moriarty fail in his attempt on my life at the Reichenbach Falls, to take revenge on their master’s behalf.
‘The scheme was a simple one and was planned to take place several years after the Reichenbach encounter,6 by which time Moriarty estimated that I should feel secure and my guard would consequently be lowered. But he omitted to take into account two vital considerations. Firstly, unlike him, I have never underestimated my opponent’s capabilities. That man possessed the most phenomenal intellect which I could only admire, much as I detested the criminal ends to which he devoted those remarkable powers. For that reason, I was able to study him objectively as one might a specimen under a microscope. By so doing, I concluded that our minds worked on a very similar plane. In short, I could deduce his reasoning and anticipate his every action as if I had entered his mind and shared with him his very thoughts.
‘I therefore asked myself the following question. Were I Professor Moriarty, what would I do if, when brought face to face with a protagonist such as myself, I ran the risk of losing my life at his hands?
‘The answer was obvious. I should so arrange matters that, at some future date, his life, too, would become forfeit.
‘Moriarty’s second mistake was in choosing Captain Van Wyk to carry out his plot. Van Wyk is essentially a man of violence, prepared to commit murder and therefore necessary to the scheme but lacking that subtlety of imagination which a swindler or a confidence trickster might have possessed. When he presented himself yesterday evening here at Baker Street with his story of the disappearance of his elderly passenger, Mr Pennington, I was suspicious of it almost at once.’
‘Were you, Holmes?’ I interjected. ‘It sounded perfectly plausible to me. What made you doubt it?’
‘The behaviour of Miss Pennington, the alleged passenger’s daughter. Once more, it was a question of putting myself in someone else’s place. Here was a young lady whose father had apparently disappeared on board ship on a dark and stormy night. Were I in her shoes, my first action would have been to rouse one of my fellow passengers in the nearby cabins. Instead, we wer
e told that she rushed out on deck to seek help from the mate.
‘I might, however, have passed over this discrepancy had I not read the letter which Miss Pennington had supposedly written to me. It was undoubtedly in a young lady’s handwriting but showed no sign of the agitation that one would have expected from someone in her situation.
‘In this letter, she mentioned an unspecified case which I had undertaken and which she claimed to have heard about from her father. I decided to test out my suspicions by asking Van Wyk if he knew to what precise investigation she referred. It was then that Van Wyk demonstrated that lack of imaginative finesse which was to confirm my doubts and bring about his arrest. So eager was he to lure me aboard the Friesland that, instead of pleading ignorance, he made the mistake of mentioning the Blackmore affair. I am afraid that I am not at liberty to divulge all the details, nor are they relevant to the present case. Suffice it to say that it was a highly delicate inquiry involving the attempted blackmail of a well-known member of the aristocracy, carried out on Professor Moriarty’s orders by one of his agents, a man called Blackmore. By means of a ruse, I was able to arrange for Blackmore’s arrest by Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard on a quite separate charge of handling stolen property on the understanding that he would receive all the credit, providing I was allowed to remove certain private papers from Blackmore’s safe.
‘Consequently, although Blackmore’s trial was widely publicised in the press, nowhere in those reports was there any mention of my name.
‘How, then, had Van Wyk learnt of my connection with the case unless he were a member of Moriarty’s syndicate and had heard it discussed among his associates? I therefore concluded that the Penningtons did not exist and that the story of the father’s disappearance was part of a plot against my life, almost certainly arranged by the late professor before his demise.’
‘Yet, knowing this, you were prepared to accompany Captain Van Wyk aboard the Friesland?’ Inspector Patterson enquired in great astonishment. ‘Surely you were aware in what grave danger you were placing not only yourself but also Dr Watson?’
‘Indeed I was and I can assure you it was not a decision I took lightly.’ Turning to me, Holmes continued, ‘My only excuse, my dear fellow, is that, throughout our long friendship, I have never known you refuse to assist me in a case, however dangerous it might prove. I acknowledge it was wrong of me to assume you would do so on this occasion and for that I offer you my sincere apologies. I would have suggested that you remained behind on some pretext or other had I not known that you would have objected and, by so doing, might have aroused Van Wyk’s suspicions. It was essential to my plan that he believed I had accepted his story unequivocally.’
‘Oh, please, Holmes!’ I exclaimed, deeply touched. ‘There is no need to apologise. Even if I had known the full circumstances, I should have agreed to accompany you.’
‘Thank you, Watson. That is what I had expected you would say. Nevertheless, I am deeply grateful. As Cicero so aptly states: “Adminiculum in amicissimo quoque dulcissimum est.”’7
There was a short silence and then Holmes resumed his account.
‘As you will recall, Watson, I sent you and Van Wyk ahead of me to wait in the cab with the excuse that I had to leave a note for Mrs Hudson. Instead, having roused our landlady, I wrote to you, Inspector Patterson, briefly describing the situation and asking for your immediate assistance but not mentioning Professor Moriarty by name for reasons which I shall shortly explain. In the letter, as you know, I suggested that you bring at least a dozen colleagues with you and that you signal your arrival by two blasts on the steam whistle of a police launch. I then handed the letter to Mrs Hudson, with strict instructions that, as soon as our cab had departed, she was to take a hansom to Scotland Yard and deliver the letter into your hands.
‘At the same time, I took the precaution of arming myself as best I could. I knew it would be quite useless to take my revolver with me. If my deductions regarding Van Wyk’s plans were correct, he would not make an attempt on our lives until the Friesland had sailed on the high tide at 1.30 a.m. and was safely out to sea. He would then murder us and fling our bodies overboard. To do so while the vessel was still in port was too dangerous. Had we put up a struggle, our outcries might have roused the passengers and those members of the crew who were not involved in the plot. Beside, our bodies, even if weighted down, might later have been dredged up by the anchor of another ship. Once out in the Channel, he ran no such risk.
‘In the meantime, he would have to keep us secure and silent. The best method of achieving this was, I deduced, first to drug us and then make sure we were safely locked away until after the vessel had set sail. One of the precautions I expected Van Wyk to take was to search our pockets. Had I carried a revolver, it would have been immediately discovered and removed. Those, at least, were my suppositions.
‘What occurred after we had boarded the Friesland is, of course, known to you, my dear Watson, as you participated in the events. But I am sure you will bear with me while I elaborate on them a little for Inspector Patterson’s benefit.
‘With the intention of persuading Van Wyk that I accepted his account, I made a pretence of examining Mr Pennington’s cabin, incidentally discovering one further mistake which Van Wyk had made in setting up his trap for us. I assume you failed to notice it yourself, Watson, for you made no reference to it, not even by so much as a raised eyebrow.’
‘I confess I noticed nothing apart from the obvious signs that a struggle had taken place and that Mr Pennington’s luggage had been searched. To what do you refer?’
‘To the basin which was liberally splashed with blood and yet there were no other stains elsewhere. Had someone bled so copiously, I should have expected to find evidence of it on the floor or upon the curtains, one of which had been wrenched from its rings during that apparent struggle.
‘With the discovery of the alleged disappearance of Miss Pennington, Van Wyk suggested that we retire to his cabin while a second search of the vessel was supposedly made and that, while we waited, we join him in drinking a glass of schnapps. The glasses as well as the bottle were kept in a locker and I noticed that, when he took them out, he was most careful to keep the two glasses intended for our use separate from the one he subsequently drank from himself, causing me to suspect that they already contained a few drops of some powerful opiate, its taste and odour effectively disguised by the brandy.
‘I am afraid there was nothing I could do, Watson, to prevent you from responding to Van Wyk’s toast. However, you may recall that I carried my own glass to the far side of the cabin where I appeared to lose my balance. Under cover of this, I emptied the contents of my glass into the spittoon which stood beside the captain’s desk.’
‘But Holmes!’ I expostulated. ‘I distinctly recall you drank your brandy only a short time later!’
‘No, my dear fellow,’ said Holmes, laughing heartily. ‘What you saw was the pretence of drinking. It is one of the oldest and simplest tricks in the repertoire of any stage magician. An object, a coin say, is placed inside a receptacle such as a box from which it apparently vanishes. The truth is, of course, that the coin has remained concealed in the man’s palm and he has merely faked the action of putting it into the container. In much the same way, I kept the empty glass shielded in my cupped hand but went through all the motions of drinking from it, evidently successfully as neither you nor Van Wyk suspected me of legerdemain.
‘After you had succumbed to the effects of the drug, I waited for a few moments and then, having observed your symptoms, I proceeded to imitate them, collapsing on the floor beside you. Once we were both apparently unconscious, Van Wyk summoned the mate, Bakker, and the two of them then set to work to search us and truss us up. It was at this point that my knowledge of baritsu8 proved its usefulness.’
‘Baritsu?’ Inspector Patterson enquired. ‘I have not heard of it.’
‘It is a Japanese form of wrestling which I have studied and which
I had used before to great effect in my struggle with Professor Moriarty on the path above the Reichenbach Falls. One of its benefits lies in the development of the muscles in the upper arms and torso. When Van Wyk and his accomplice, Bakker, bound the ropes about my chest and secured my arms behind my back, I flexed those muscles and, by releasing the tension after they had left, I was able to loosen the ropes sufficiently to allow me to reach the blade of a scalpel I had concealed in the cuff of my coat. After ten minutes’ laborious work, I succeeded in cutting through the cord round my wrists and, once my hands were free, the other bonds were soon released. The rest you know. Having roused you, my dear Watson, and untied you, it was simply a matter of waiting for the signal from the steam whistle announcing the arrival of the excellent inspector here and his colleagues.’
‘You have forgotten one thing, Holmes,’ I pointed out.
‘Have I? And what is that, pray?’
‘The picklock with which you opened the cabin door.’
‘Did I omit to mention it? How remiss of me!’ Holmes said carelessly. ‘The explanation is quite simple. At the same time as I concealed the scalpel blade, I took the precaution of strapping a small selection of picklocks round my left ankle. It made walking somewhat painful, hence my excuse of having sprained my foot. But it was worth the discomfort. The implements proved indispensable.
‘And now, Inspector Patterson – and you, too, Watson, for the consequences will affect you as well – I must offer you an explanation of why I failed to refer to Professor Moriarty by name in the letter I sent by Mrs Hudson. The omission was deliberate.
‘You will not have heard, my dear fellow, of the murder in Rotterdam in January ’90 of a Hendrik Van den Vondel, although Inspector Patterson was informed of it at the time. Van den Vondel was fatally stabbed one night, apparently in the course of an attempted robbery, near the docks by two men who were seen running away by a passer-by. Unfortunately, the witness was not able to describe them and the two malefactors were never brought to justice. However, there were rumours of a darker and more sinister motive behind Van den Vondel’s death.
The Secret Journals of Sherlock Holmes (A&B Crime) Page 15